inexpensive X79 motherboard?

x509

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Suggestions appreciated for a decent quality inexpensive X79 board. Nothing fancy, just 4 memory slots.

I had a thread going about problems with my ASUS P9X79Pro board. After I removed and reseated the CPU, the system would simply not boot up. In that thread, someone recommended a inpensive X79 motherboard, and the more I think about that, the more I like the idea. To be clear, I just upgraded to an ASUS ROG Strix-E for AMD and I'm very happy with that build as my daily driver. But there is still value in the Intel 3930K CPU, heatsink and 4 x 8 GB Corsair RAM. i'm going to upgrade the video card in a few months, and I have sold drives in my parts bin, so I have all I need to build up a backup system or else a NAS.
 
z420 motherboards are usually less than $100

I was able to overclock using intel xtu

[EDIT]
Looks like around $50, I was able to hook up a normal atx psu using the pinouts provided on a google search
 
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Chinese knock off boards start at around $65-70, many even have m.2 slots.
 
Chinese knock off boards start at around $65-70, many even have m.2 slots.
And they don't have a x79 chipset, and the BIOS is awful. (if that matters to people)
 
And they don't have a x79 chipset,
And? What does that change in practice? Apart from supporting ECC ram.
and the BIOS is awful. (if that matters to people)
Well I only used the bios once for the initial setup. Sure it has a lot of unnecessary and obscure options, and missing OC functions, but the latter could be amended.
Of course the VRM quality on these doesn't really offer great OC to begin with.
But still it is a viable option if you're looking for a cheap board for your CPU, and don't want to pay extra for some second hand 5 year old brand board.
 
Chinese knock off boards start at around $65-70, many even have m.2 slots.

Quite a few do. Specifically, these Plex Turbo "X79" boards. Make no mistake about it, most of these boards do not have an actual x79/c602 chipset. I've got 2 of them, one is a B75 chipset - the other a Q77... in S2011v0.

However: both are fully 3.0 laned, including a PCIe m2 3.0 x4 slot (which is a huge advantage over an actual x79 board that can't be bios-modded to support an AIC NVMe SSD setup). Both also have no issue with a full load-out of 1866mhz DDR3 (128gb ECC/Reg)

Russian modders have opened the bioses up on these cards and there are plenty of shots of oc options for unlocked chips (i've got some 2690v2s).

Not the worst boards from my anecdotal experience.

IMG_20200525_175403.jpg
 
And? What does that change in practice? Apart from supporting ECC ram.

Well I only used the bios once for the initial setup. Sure it has a lot of unnecessary and obscure options, and missing OC functions, but the latter could be amended.
Of course the VRM quality on these doesn't really offer great OC to begin with.
But still it is a viable option if you're looking for a cheap board for your CPU, and don't want to pay extra for some second hand 5 year old brand board.
I was just pointing out that people should be aware they actually aren't x79 motherboards despite claiming so in the product name, but rather just a socket LGA 2011v1 motherboard that has been built to work with processors that are usually run with the x79/C60x chipsets.

It is hit or miss which chipset board you'll actually receive from the Chinese sellers, because they aren't honest. That's not to say they are bad boards, because they aren't. They offer a great value for the performance. But yes, they are lacking in some areas, like BIOS (choose between shoddy chinese original or hacked russian 3rd party) with broken functionality (especially sleep implementation), some only support dual channel memory opposed to quad channel, virtualization directed I/O is usually broken if you planned on using the board with a hypervisor, PCIe lane implementation varies depending on the revision/chipset, VRM quality and cooling is marginal if overclocking, etc.

That said, if a few quirks can be dealt with as mentioned, they are a good board. I just don't like false advertising or having to buy something to figure out what is in it. I do commend their efforts in making this option available for people wanting to run LGA 2011v1 processors on low cost motherboards.

Phil's Computer Lab does some pretty decent reviews of these knockoff "x79" boards. Example videos:













There's also the "Dual x79" review by Craft Computing which uses the C602 chipset:

 
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i would scour ebay or the usual suspect forum marketplaces for someone wanting to sell a parted out older system. actual x79 chipsets and cheap arent two phrases that go together frequently. the flood of inexpensive xeons ensured that x79 will always command a premium
 
i would scour ebay or the usual suspect forum marketplaces for someone wanting to sell a parted out older system. actual x79 chipsets and cheap arent two phrases that go together frequently. the flood of inexpensive xeons ensured that x79 will always command a premium
So is it better to see my i3930k (unlocked) CPU and Corsair quad channel 32GB RAM and buy an inxpensive low-end board for an AMD Ryzen?

I'm pretty sure that the poster who said that my curent board has bent CPU pins is right. Out of curiosity, is it OK to see that board in the buy/sell forum here as long as I disclose the issue? I don't want to do anything that would damage my rep on this board or any other board.
 
So is it better to see my i3930k (unlocked) CPU and Corsair quad channel 32GB RAM and buy an inxpensive low-end board for an AMD Ryzen?

I'm pretty sure that the poster who said that my curent board has bent CPU pins is right. Out of curiosity, is it OK to see that board in the buy/sell forum here as long as I disclose the issue? I don't want to do anything that would damage my rep on this board or any other board.

You can list it for sale, just be sure to say the board has bent socket pins and doesn't POST. You probably won't get much for it though. The CPU and RAM will get more money since they still work.
 
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